I mentioned in a previous post (
Did you just call me a statistic?!) how cutting back on work to be home with the kids had a huge impact on our marriage. I've been thinking alot about that....
Justin and I have always done all the household chores/shopping together. It's not because we're some disgusting, hyper-organized, efficient couple who cannot be away from eachother. It actually started as this quirky habit while we were dating. The quirky habit is rooted in Justin's love of meandering the aisles at SUPER stores. He does it artfully, there is no timeframe -just browsing and shopping and checking stuff out. Never the mall, only SUPER stores. It's a study of pop-culture or something. It's soothing to him. Anyway, he has always done his grocery shopping on Sundays. I would join him when I spent weekends at his place. Eventually we were living together and it just became this thing our friends laughed at us for:
"Oh, nevermind, can't do the cookout on Sunday, that's SHOPPING day! Hahahaha!".Once we moved in together, I took over the laundry and most of the cleaning - Justin can't do either one for shit and I find these tasks cathartic and theraputic. Justin still contributed in ways that were a challenge and a risk for him. He (sort of) made the bed, he put laundry in the correct baskets, he took trash out, and made every attempt to embrace a whole new concept of not making a mess and leaving it. And most importantly, Justin knew that being inept did not exempt him from participation - he was always respectful enough to linger and keep me company until I released him. In a perfectly unplanned trade off, he took on most of the cooking duties. So, we were a modern couple from day one! We liked to make eachother's lives easier and play on our strengths. It was nice... until I went part-time at work.
Justin and I always agreed that if we were going to have kids, one or the other of us was going to be there with them as much as we could afford to do it. There was a time when we half considered Justin being that parent.
I knew before I tried to transition from career girl to mom,
I knew that many women struggle with it. I was braced for it, and we tried to approach it realistically knowing that I very much define myself by my professional success and my career. Many people think it's a vacation to be allowed to stay home with kids. For me, it was a "sacrifice", but it was something I would absolutely do for my children. There is nothing I wouldn't sacrifice for myself to give to my children. Now, DO NOT tell my children that, they'll get a big head! They'll realize it all in good time. In fact, that's how I'll know I did a good job!
In that previous post, I mention the tangeable shift in power when I reduced my work to part time. I did this power shift thing to myself. Justin never made me feel less important or expendable, but I definately made myself feel that way. Nobody pats you on the head and says "Good girl! You got all the laundry done with two sick kids underfoot!". Being at home did a number on my head. Nothing to qualify or quantify me? How will I know I'm doing it right? I was a validation junkie...
A few years before our first child, Justin's business started generating sustainable profits and that had alot to do with deciding I could work just part time. Since that time, Justin has been working 6 days per week and is often gone for more than 12 hours per day. His days normally start at 6am. He is dead tired by the time he hits the door and eats my crappy dinners. He can barely stay awake past 9pm. Most nights, he follows the kids to bed.
On the plus side, when he comes in after work, he immediately cuddles and loves all over the kids and we all kick it in the kitchen while he helps with dinner. On the minus side, when bath / bed time arrives he is ready for a break and wanders off to something else, leaving it all to me just as my breaking point for the day is approaching. After several months of this, I finally started dragging him back by the ear to help me until he got the hint. Incidentally, this dragging by the ear of a tired man by a frustrated woman adds sich a nice, warm feeling to the kids' bedtime routine.
"Hint" was the problem. He is so tired, he deserves the break. For a long time, I did everything myself. I did it in the hopes that at alternate points, he would do the same for me. I was forgetting that he is a dude. He cannot read my hopeful-ass mind, I know this (sometimes).
I felt too guilty to ASK him so I hinted... Oh my god! I became that girl. I hated to burden him to stay involved in the routine just a
liiittle bit longer, that way we could both get to our downtime faster. I felt guilty asking him to help around the house, even on weekends. I felt guilty about asking him to unload the dishwasher. I felt petty about feeling so rageful that this man who I'd coached so well for 10 years was reverting back to dropping his dirty clothes beside the bed or the shower. I let all this crap load up on me, all while taking over the bookkeeping and office duties for his business, in addition to my own part time work.
I felt that standard "lonely for adult interaction" feeling. I eventually came to appreciate the evenings, when they all went to bed and I had a few hours to myself, but I was lonely. With him working so hard, I made a point to take over the grocery shopping, take over the cleaning altogether, and many other little tasks like this that we used to share. I did this so that when he was home, we weren't rushing in different directions trying to keep up with it all. So that he could hang out with us, so we wouldn't drift and develop different lives as so often happens.
The more I took on, the more my expectations of him lowered and lowered. He had less and less responsibility and was not at all engaged in the household. He became
spoiled and
irrelevant and
uninterested. I did that to him. I thought I was doing us all a favor but really I created a monster, and I resented it. By last summer, I wanted to run away just so he would know how much work I did. I knew it was childish to want to "prove" something, but how else would he know to appreciate me?!??
In the past few months, his business, like so many, is way off - in fact, the damn thing is nearly shut down. Justin has been around alot more. It's an adjustment for all of us but if there is a silver lining to the economic downturn, it's that we love having him around AND his appreciation level for what I go through at home is way back up to where it used to be.
When he walks around dusting the living room, he can see for himself how badly the walls need to be painted. When he sweeps the floor, he can see how much damage Lucy has done to the wood floors. He cannot believe how many times per day you have to sweep the kitchen, so now - he remembers, without fail, to take those mud caked boots off so he won't poop on his own hard work. He knows the kids and their moods more intimately. And my personal fave: Sometimes I get to be the good cop now that he is around so much that he actively disciplines the children too.
I forgot about the importance of pride in ownership. I forgot that you own a thing more when you build it yourself. You care more when you stay involved. We feel more like ourselves these days and I am way less stressed...
O
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